The Good, The Bad, and The Hilarious of Parenting

Why Some Animals Eat Their Young

Now that I am raising a teenager, I know why some animals eat their young!Now please don’t go call social service on me. I am not actually going to eat her, but I am so mad I can spit nails!

I have a beautiful smart accomplished 15 year old daughter that makes me proud on a daily basis just because she exist. I love her with all my heart and would do anything to ensure her happiness. I hurt when she hurts. I am happy when she is happy. I know many of you parents can relate to this, but there are those few occasions that I want to shake her until her eyeballs rattle.

Last night was one of those nights. The poor thing had been so sick with the stomach bug. Monday night we ended up at Patient First because she was so dehydrated she was actually in pain. She got two bags of IV fluids. I took off Tuesday to nurse her back to health — getting her beloved McDonald’s sweet tea, feeding her popsicles, and offering her hugs when ever she needed them. I even went and met her dad because she wanted some of his homemade chicken noodle soup which by the way was very good! {Thanks B}

Then after all of my love and kindness she boldly looks at me and says, “I am going to school tomorrow.” Instantly, I prepared for battle with a firm, “No you are not. You have had less than 20 ozs. of fluid, one cracker, and a small bowl of chicken noodle soup broth and noodles. You are not strong enough to return to school yet.” From deep within she mustered strength that I didn’t think she possessed because she was so sick and, she replied, “That is not fair! I am going to school.” I proceeded on my tiraide for about 10 minutes and finally, threw up my hands and said, “Screw it! Go! But if you get sick don’t come to my classroom.” (I am blessed to teach at her school. She probably doesn’t see it as a blessing though)

I try to pick my battles, and I felt that I was definitely in the right, but she needed to learn a lesson because as adults we have all pushed through a sickness because we felt we had to. In the end though, if we would have given ourselves one more day, we would have been fully recovered and better able to take care of those responsibilities. Not to mention, K’s father never slows down and doesn’t believe in being sick. She had to do this, and I was going to let her even if it meant she suffered a bit.

As she exited my car Wednesday morning, she whispered, “I love you Mom.” I could already hear the regret in her voice, but she is a bit stubborn like me. I told her I loved her too because regardless of how angry I am my love doesn’t waiver. Within 30 minutes of entering school, she was in my classroom. Her color was bad, and I could read her eyes. She wasn’t feeling well. All of my anger began to melt away. I wanted to hug her and put her in the car and take her home, but I couldn’t because there was a lesson to be learned.

Why? The question that million of parents have asked throughout time. Why won’t they listen to us? I know now that if I had listened to my mom I would not have suffered so many “lessons” in life, but I had to do it my way. I was telling a co-worker of mine about the situation, and she said that she felt God gave us teenagers to help us learn to let them go because once they reach the stage of “I know it all” we are ready to move them on to their own life. I thought yea that makes sense because if they stayed any longer we might “eat them” to put ourselves out of misery. See, parenting isn’t all warm fuzzies all the time!

So very, very true. I have two twelve year olds that I tell constantly that there is a reason humans don’t have their kids in a nest and occasionally when they don’t listen to my advice and fail I remind them that very soon they will have to figure it all out themselves. In the mean time be happy they aren’t birds and be happy they have us for 25 years. They haven’t figured out the 18 things so were brainwashing them. Hahaha!